


Survival of the Monster

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Consequences, Emma Russell Survives AU, Fluff, Gen, Post-Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), i tried to make this feel as much like the end of a movie as possible, minor non-graphic mention of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: For better or worse, Emma Russell survives the battle of Boston. This is the aftermath.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 54





	Survival of the Monster

**Author's Note:**

> To the anon who requested this _back in January_ … um, better late than never, right? Y’all know I’ve had a bazillion WIPs going for a while now, this can’t surprise you. But thank you for your patience, and I’m actually really happy with this! 
> 
> (title is a play on the phrase “survival of the fittest” but inspired by Maddie telling her mom “You’re a monster.” in the movie)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

“Dad, _please,_ I just want to see her—”

“You’re not going in there until she’s woken up and been talked to, Maddie. I’m sorry, but I’m not budging on this.” Her dad squeezed her tight against his side. “I’m not losing you again.”

Maddie huffed and crossed her arms, even as she leaned into the embrace. “She’s handcuffed to the bed, what do you think she could do?”

“These past few days have given me enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime. I don’t need any more.”

She wanted to protest, say that this was her _mom_ they were talking about, but that was part of the problem, wasn’t it?

“Do they… do they think I’d try and help her escape or something?” she asked instead.

Her dad was quiet long enough to give her the answer. “Would you?”

She might’ve been angry if he didn’t sound curious instead of accusing. Maddie didn’t even have to think about it, but thinking and speaking were two different things, and to answer aloud felt more like a betrayal. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

No. Even if someone else planned it all out and all she had to do was get the handcuffs off her mom, she still wouldn’t. And it wasn’t because she thought her mom deserved to face the consequences for what she’d done—though she _did._

Maddie couldn’t stand the thought of giving her mom the chance to do it all over again, and she couldn’t trust her to have learned her lesson. Because, if Maddie hadn’t taken the ORCA and run off, Emma Russell would be as MIA as Jonah and the rest.

She’d heard the number of deaths, which was still rising as they continued to find survivors and corpses with every layer of rubble the emergency responders were able to dig past. All around the world, innocent people were reaping what her mom and Jonah had sown.

And she’d just stood by and let it all happen.

“I was so stupid,” she whispered.

“No,” her dad said. “You were a child. _Are_ a child. You’re twelve years old, Maddie, and you were even younger when they first started planning.” He made a low, angry sound and looked away, jaw clenched. “I can’t even begin to imagine the sort of lies they told you.”

Neither could Maddie. Every kid learned their parents weren’t truth-telling saints at some point, and her realization hit approximately a minute before an entire town was leveled by Rodan, acting on her mom’s orders.

“I still feel stupid. And guilty.”

Her dad tilted his head so his cheek was pressed against her hair. She could feel his face moving as he spoke. “I hope you don’t blame yourself.”

Maddie shrugged. She kinda did, but at the same time—well, she hadn’t been the one to press the ORCA’s buttons.

While he considered something, her dad’s fingers brushed up and down her bare arm, her jacket balled up on the couch cushion beside her. He hadn’t been able to let her out of his sight for anything other than sleep and bathroom breaks, and whenever possible, he made sure there was physical contact between them.

She’d been told how dead she looked in that bathtub at first. She could forgive her dad for his clinginess, especially when it was just as reassuring for her.

Quietly, he finally said, “How about this—if you can’t forgive yourself yet, then try to remember that once they showed their true colors, you wasted no time before going to fix things yourself. And you did fix it, Maddie. Beyond anything anyone would’ve expected you to.”

She nodded slowly. She could remember that, she supposed. Maybe it would even help.

But there was something else, something just as important that she desperately needed to know, despite the knots in her stomach. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s gonna happen to Mom?”

He blew out a long, pained breath. “I… don’t know specifics, but I have my suspicions.”

“She’s in a lot of trouble, right?” Yes, obviously, of course, but—but sometimes, you had to hear the words to really believe them. To make them _make sense._

Mercifully, her dad didn’t make a joke out of her question. “Your mom’s broken a lot of laws, kiddo. Even without all the deaths and injuries, she… some of the things she did… you didn’t see all of it.”

Maddie could guess at some of it. She stayed silent.

“I… imagine…” he said slowly, carefully, like he was testing the weight of each word before he spoke it. “She’ll be tried, and… found guilty. I don’t know if they’ll send her to any old prison or if they’ll take precautions in case of…”

“Jonah?”

“Yeah. If he decides she’s worth the trouble, he might try something.”

And then Maddie took a deep breath to ask The Question: “Will I ever see her again?”

To that, her dad had no answer, and this time, his silence didn’t tell her anything.

• • • 

Maddie eventually fell asleep against her dad’s shoulder, there on the couch in the medical wing’s lounge. She wasn’t sure which Monarch base they’d been brought to once it was all over, but she didn’t really care.

A gentle touch brought her awake with a little gasp. Her dad smiled weakly at her. “They just got done talking to Emma. You can see her now, if you want.” There was a nurse standing a few feet away from the couch.

She nodded groggily. It felt like there was dirt in her eyes, all dry and sharp. It’d been there since Boston. She rubbed her eyes as she stood and followed the nurse out of the room and down the hallway. Her dad trailed behind them both, and Maddie knew he’d essentially stand guard at the door but probably wouldn’t come in.

At least, not while she was in there. For once, she didn’t resent the idea of being left out of an adult conversation.

An armed guard stood outside the door, someone she recognized from G-team. If her brain had been more awake, she probably would’ve been able to remember their name. Her dad took up a position on the other side, ready to stand sentinel until she was done.

Maddie entered the room where her mom lay in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the rails. She was in bad shape. Ghidorah had gotten a single good shot in before Godzilla stole his attention, and by the skin of her teeth, she’d managed to escape the blast range before she could be cooked alive.

Miraculous, people probably would’ve called it, if she had been considered one of the good guys. As it was, the whispers bluntly said Emma Russell would’ve been better off dying in Boston, considering what the rest of her life would look like.

Serving as a distraction with the ORCA, while well-intentioned, would do nothing to lighten her punishment. The gesture had come too little, too late.

Her mom was bruised and burned, but alive. Heavy bandages wrapped around her arms, and likely continued beneath the bedsheets where Maddie couldn’t see. Some of the worst burns would scar, the doctors had told them when they first arrived hours ago.

“Maddie,” her mom whispered hoarsely. “You’re all right.”

She nodded and went to sit in the chair beside the bed. The handcuffs clinked as her mom shifted a little to better face her. It hurt to see her mom restrained like that, but that was because it was _her mom_. Mixed in with the distress was relief. 

It was over.

“How are you feeling?” Maddie asked. She remembered—viscerally and vividly—the moment Ghidorah had struck and she was left to assume her mother was dead. Her own scream still echoed in her ears.

A weak smile, more of a cringe, really, was her answer. “It could’ve been worse. The doctors say I should be able to move without pain in a few weeks.”

Maddie swallowed heavily and forced a smile. “That’s good.”

There was an elephant the size of a Titan in the room and she had no idea how to address it, or if she even should. How do you talk to your mom about the inevitable consequences of terrorism?

“I’d hug you,” Maddie said instead, “if I didn’t think it would hurt you.”

Her mom’s face did a sad thing, her mouth turning down at the corners even as she tried to smile. “You should hug me anyway.”

She stood up and, careful to avoid the worst looking injuries, leaned over to give her mom a hug. She buried her face in the less burned shoulder and tried not to think about how odd it felt not to be hugged back.

• • •

Maddie stared blankly out the window, watching the clouds drift by without really looking at them. Her dad would be finished talking to her mom soon. Whatever her dad had been feeling when they traded spots was a mystery to her. She hadn’t stuck around outside the room out of fear of hearing them shout or something.

She wasn’t sure she could handle that right now. Not when she still felt raw and empty and pried open from their own talk.

The hand that landed on her shoulder startled her. She hadn’t heard anyone enter the room.

Her dad stood behind her, looking very tired. As soon as she stood up, he pulled her against him, and they stood like that in silence for a few minutes.

“Do you think she’d do it again?” Maddie eventually whispered. “Like, if she got out in a month. Would she try again?”

“I don’t think so,” her dad said. “But that’s the problem, right? I didn’t think she could do it this time. None of us did.”

Maddie had heard about the conversation following the confrontation in Antarctica, about how no one had been able to believe Emma Russell to be capable of what she’d done. If she herself hadn’t watched her mom’s mind be made up, over weeks and months of internal debates, she probably wouldn’t have either.

Her dad continued, “That’s why everyone’s so wary right now. Because how can we trust her?”

It _hurt,_ it hurt a lot, knowing her mom was a criminal who even the people who had been her friends a week ago couldn’t trust anymore. She wondered if her mom had ever considered this as an outcome, if she ever thought about the consequences she’d face if something went wrong and her plan failed.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t. Not when some truths had been kept from her right up until Rodan’s awakening had caused thousands of deaths. Because in the end, Maddie was like all the others. She hadn’t thought her mom was capable right up until she pressed the button.

They finally left the room, her dad’s arm secure around her shoulders, and Maddie glanced back down the hall in the direction of her mom’s room.

“You never said…” Maddie looked up at her dad. “Will I ever see her again?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t say for sure,” he admitted. “Maybe someday? I know there’ll be pretty tight security on her for a while, as long as Jonah’s still out there at least. I wish I could give you a solid answer, kiddo, but… things change.”

It was the most honest answer he could’ve given her, and for that, she was grateful.

They reached the main entrance to the base and found a few familiar faces waiting for them. The Chens, Dr. Stanton, and Dr. Coleman.

“Uh oh,” her dad said, “here comes trouble.”

“Aw, hell. They’re onto us, Ilene,” Dr. Stanton fake-whispered, nudging her shoulder.

Maddie grinned before asking, “Are you guys here to see my mom?”

“No,” Dr. Chen answered, sharing a mischievous look with Dr. Ling. “We are here to see you two.”

“It’s nothing bad!” Dr. Coleman hurried to assure her dad, who had half-turned like he was about to try and run away before they could drag him into another chaotic adventure. “Actually, Mark, I was hoping to convince you to work with us on a new project.”

When her dad did nothing more than drag his hand down his face with a sigh, Maddie asked for him, “What sort of project?”

Dr. Coleman sent a quick smile her way. “We want to try using some of the ORCA’s technology to find a way to understand the Titans. No controlling them this time.”

“And,” Dr. Ling said before Mark could respond—likely with rejection— “we believe Mothra laid a new egg before the battle, so she could continue her cycle. We thought Maddie might like to see her again.”

Maddie turned her head to look up at her dad at the same moment he looked down at her. If he could read her excitement and pleading as easily as she could read his reluctance, then she didn’t need to say a word.

“I can’t just let you go off on your own,” he protested.

“She wouldn’t be alone.” Dr. Chen and Dr. Ling both smiled at the same time, and Maddie couldn’t even tell which had spoken. “We’re heading Mothra’s new research team, and Maddie has always been like family.”

“Yeah, man,” Dr. Stanton added. “And when she’s not there with them, she’s welcome at Castle Bravo with the rest of us.”

“It’s where we’re going to focus on our new project,” Dr. Coleman said. “What with Godzilla and all.”

Dr. Stanton nodded with that almost-smirk of his. “The big guy’s vocalizations are gonna be the base of this thing.”

Her dad was cracking, she just knew it, so Maddie dealt the final blow. She tugged on his hand and softly said, “Please?”

He closed his eyes in defeat. Looking up at the other four, he shrugged helplessly even as a smile started to spread across his face. “I guess we’re in.”

Dr. Coleman pulled something from his pocket and stepped forward, offering each of them a personalized Monarch ID card. “We… had a feeling you’d say that.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the ending, I was going for those final scenes in movies where the music starts to get a little exciting and a few characters convince a few others (occasionally the reluctant ones) to join them for a new adventure. Someone usually says, “You in?” or something along those lines. Good for implying a sequel. Y’know what I mean? 
> 
> hope you guys liked it, since i know so many of you like seeing good old consequences, love y’all lots ❤️❤️❤️


End file.
